


Smoke in the Mirror

by HQ_Wingster, Multiple_Universes



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Character Study, Family Feels, Fate & Destiny, Fortune Telling, Gen, One Shot, Prophetic Visions, Seer Katsuki Yuuri, Self-Acceptance, Sibling Bonding, Spirits, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HQ_Wingster/pseuds/HQ_Wingster, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multiple_Universes/pseuds/Multiple_Universes
Summary: Fumes materialize into different things to different people. Some see joy, some see despair, and others see nothing at all. But Yuuri? Yuuri sees all kinds of warnings in the smoke of Mari’s cigarettes.Written for a Bing as part of the Live and Love: A Yuri!!! On Ice Big BangPrompts used: Fumes and Magical Realism





	Smoke in the Mirror

_This all will pass._

Wasn’t that what they said at times like this? But the words were nothing but hollow for Yuuri now.

When he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the brush of Vicchan’s soft fur against his arm. He imagined he could hear Vicchan give a short whine.

The poodle, if he’d still been alive, would’ve danced with a leash in his jaw, begging for an afternoon walk. He loved patrolling the sidewalks with a skip in every step while his nose sniffed the air for a gull to chase.

But these memories all faded when Yuuri stared down at Vicchan’s old leash. His fingers tightened painfully around it and he bit his lip as unbidden tears rose to his eyes. Next to him lay the photo his family had put in the shrine they’d made for Vicchan. Behind the glass was Yuuri, younger than he was now, his arms around a baby Vicchan.

Back then everything had been so simple. It had been a time when nightmares were just dreams that faded away in the morning, when growing up sounded like something in the far off future, when going to school felt like going out into the big wide world.

Those were the days before the world had become cluttered. Or, maybe, it had always been cluttered and he just never noticed.

Yuuri could see everything now. He was all too aware of every detail of that moment: the rise and fall of his chest with every breath he took, the steady beating of his heart, the feel of the wooden floorboards beneath him and the way the wooden match felt when he struck it against the side of the box. How the orange flame blossomed and waved on the end of the match as he held it to each of the incense sticks. Three, to be exact, for all the times Vicchan had saved his life.

The first: when Yuuri stuck out his neck to save a life. The second: when Yuuri was lost in the neighboring woods, struck by a sight that shook him to the core. The third consisted of one really bad nightmare that Vicchan had dragged Yuuri out of when he heard the boy whimpering, curled up under a blanket, his forehead covered in sweat. Just feeling Vicchan under the blanket next to him was enough to reassure him that everything would be okay.

Yuuri’s vision blurred as he stared down at the incense sticks, but he made no move to rub the tears away. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for everything.”

But it was more than just those three times. He knew he could always rely on Vicchan’s constant presence when things got hard (and, _boy_ , did they get hard).

Soon after Yuuri turned ten he started to see visions. He would stare into smoke and see brief glimpses of the future. Usually they were small things: his father slipping while cleaning the onsen, his mother losing her wallet while out shopping, but sometimes he caught sight of something bigger.

And the vision didn’t come alone: before he saw each one, a spirit, a _Speckleft_ , appeared in the smoke and taunted him. It was a horrible beast, made of smoke and despair. He never understood what it was and, perhaps, he never would. At first it terrified him and he stood paralyzed by fear as it coiled around him, whispering terrible words into his ear. Over time he learned that all the spirit could do was speak and no longer feared that it would harm him somehow. He was, however, very terrified of what it would show him.

He couldn’t explain how or why these visions chose him to be their seer. Just that it happened and he was faced with the choice to do something with the knowledge, or to try to go on as if he knew nothing.

The first time he’d had a vision he ran to Mari, not knowing who else to go to for advice.

 

_“Don’t you see, Yuuri?” she exclaimed. “That means that you can see bad things before they happen to us! So you can change the future and those bad things will never happen again!”_

_“How do I know when I’ve made the right change? How do I know I’m doing the right thing?” he asked, all wide-eyed terror. “What if I do something that only makes it worse?”_

_“Easy,” she told him, “I’m sure the answer will be obvious. And, if not, you can always come to me and we’ll figure it out together.”_

_“Okay!”_

 

But Mari was wrong. Yuuri had grown up, listening to what his sister said, believing her every word, trusting her to be right. But Mari, who could never see any of these visions, didn’t understand how they worked any more than he did.

Sure, they helped many people at the start, but he didn’t see _every_ bad thing. He hadn’t foreseen Mari breaking her pinky, or the sickness that had him and half his class bedridden for a week. And he hadn’t foreseen this – the biggest loss in Yuuri’s life. There had been no vision warning of Vicchan’s death.

“You couldn’t have saved him,” a voice said, drawing Yuuri out of his thoughts. “Even if you’d known, there was nothing you could’ve done.”

Yuuri raised his eyes and saw Mari standing in the doorway. It was probably true, he conceded, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a while. “I know you want some time alone.” She didn’t add any excuse after that, but she didn’t need to.

He gave a nod and opened his mouth to tell her that an apology wasn’t necessary when the smoke from the incense gathered beside her and a second Mari appeared in the vision.

Mari must’ve seen the change that came over his face. She must’ve noticed how his eyes widened in alarm, or how he sat, unable to tear his eyes away as he stared in horror at something she couldn’t see.

“Yuuri?” she asked. “Yuuri, what’s wrong?”

He swallowed and forced himself to meet her questioning stare. It wasn’t easy and he couldn’t hold it for long. “I just realized that I forgot to do something important,” he said.

She was silent, waiting for him to say more, and he, in turn, waited for her to tell him that she wasn’t buying this lie.

He was no good at lying and he knew it better than anyone else, but what could he say? The truth being entirely out of the question, he could only keep going with the lie.

“I need to finish my university application!” he exclaimed and rushed out the door as if the application was about to run away from him.

He hurried to his room, tripping over his own feet as he went and tried to push the vision out of his mind, but it stubbornly persisted.

In some ways seeing the visions was like walking through a fog. First, there was a dark outline, as if to give him a chance to guess what he was about to see, and then the shapes formed into something recognizable and gained just the hint of colour. And all the time the Speckleft would whisper, giving Yuuri a commentary he wished he couldn’t hear.

Yuuri opened the door to his room and closed it right behind him. He tried to block the memory of the vision out of his mind. He tried to think of something else, but it was no use. He dropped onto the bed and covered his face with his hands, mourning something that hadn’t happened yet, something he didn’t know how to stop.

He kept his door locked and stuck to the excuse of his application for not coming out to join his family.

They all tried to coax him out of his room and all with no luck.

Night came, but thoughts and memories kept him awake. How could he sleep with the knowledge that he had?

It was his duty _not_ to sleep. As painful as it was, he had to go try to see it again. He had to do everything in his power to change it. He’d just lost one family member, he would _not_ lose another.

It was two in the morning when he slipped out of his room to find a place live fumes and answers to his questions. This time he didn’t go to the little shrine they’d made for Vicchan, but set up a smoking fire instead.

“Speckleft,” he called softly, sitting down on his knees and doing his best to appear respectful. “Speckleft,” he called a second time. “Please come. Please show me the rest of that vision.”

It wasn’t long before the spirit appeared, chuckling softly to itself. “ _Are you sure? Do you think your little heart can handle it?_ ” it taunted him. It always did this, treating each vision like a game, teasing Yuuri. He wasn’t sure if it was always the same spirit, or a different one each time that just looked the same as the previous one. Whichever it was, the Speckleft always did its utmost to make him squirm, to see him suffering and in pain.

Yuuri gave a serious nod. “I want to see the rest, please.”

The Speckleft replied with a nasty laugh, but obliged.

The vision showed Yuuri skating in a costume he’d never seen before. Something about the vision suggested this was a practice in his costume rather than an actual competition.

“ _You’re twenty years old here_ ,” the Speckleft whispered.

The Yuuri in the vision skated to the boards to listen to the instructions from his coach. Yuuri furrowed his brow, wondering who he would see, but when the Yuuri in the vision stepped aside Yuuri’s jaw dropped.

His older self’s coach was none other than Yakov Feltsman, coach for many Russian athletes, including Yuuri’s idol, Victor Nikiforov himself.

The breath caught in Yuuri’s throat

He watched himself nod in understanding and go out onto the middle of the ice.

“This isn’t what you showed me earlier!” Yuuri protested.

“ _Oh you want to see that, do you?_ ” the Speckleft teased. “ _Alright. This is from a year earlier._ ”

He showed Yuuri the vision from before: Mari pushing Yuuri out of the way as a car went straight for her.

Yuuri put his hands over his mouth to stifle the scream that rose in his throat.

“ _Do you want to know what happens next?_ ” the Speckleft asked and, not bothering to wait for Yuuri’s answer, showed it to him anyway.

Yuuri was standing on the podium with a gold medal around his neck. The next vision was of him talking to Yakov and…

“Stop!” Yuuri cut in. “I don’t care about all that.”

“ _Don’t you? I thought you wanted to be one of the top figure skaters? I thought your dream was to skate on the same ice as your beloved idol, Victor Nikiforov. I thought –_ ”

“Please,” Yuuri interrupted. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me all this. It has nothing to do with Mari’s – with Mari.”

“ _On the contrary_ ,” the Speckleft cut in, its features spreading in a nasty imitation of a grin. “ _It has_ everything _to do with Mari’s death. When she dies you dedicate your free skate to her and you deliver the best skate of the season. It’s so incredible that Yakov himself offers to coach you._ ”

“You’re lying!”

The smoke around the Speckleft rose in the imitation of a shrug. “ _Suit yourself_.”

Yuuri put the fire out and returned to his room, feeling no better than before. He dropped onto his bed, as if his whole body had become unbearably heavy.

The quiet darkness of the night mocked him, taunting him with visions of a tempting future, a future he was determined to erase completely. He buried his face in the pillow and tried to think about Mari instead.

How could he make sure a future like that never happened? He had to make a big change, something that couldn’t be undone easily. Just watching for cars was not enough. They would _have_ to go their separate ways.

With the university applications and his skating career both weighing heavily on his mind, this seemed like the perfect time for him to leave Hasetsu.

He had no choice but to face his fear head on, but another problem presented itself like an unwelcome guest at a party: he didn’t want to leave Hasetsu. He was comfortable here. True, it was a small town and nothing really interesting ever happened here, but this was his home and it suited him just fine. Yuuri felt like a bird that had made a warm and comfortable nest was now being forced to leave.

But he had to go. He had to do something that would make sure that this future definitely _didn’t_ happen.

The Russian coach’s face appeared before his mind’s eye, reminding him of what he was throwing aside. He turned over and tried to think of something else. There was still the question of school and getting a degree he reminded himself. But between school and figure skating he knew where his choice lay, what path he preferred to follow. Fear clouded his mind, nagging at him that if he came closer to being the Yuuri in the fumes, that successful, triumphant Yuuri, the future he’d seen would somehow become more likely.

The night was full of phantoms and dreams made out of his wildest wishes, and he felt hope blossom in his chest. But as the sun rose and a new day was born they all melted away, leaving behind a terrible heart-stopping fear. Would this be enough of a change? How could he be sure that fate wouldn’t find another way to interfere and snatch Mari’s life away?

But, then, he never knew. When he made those little changes, it was so easy for Fate to set everything back on its old track and, yet, as far as he knew, it never did. But still he remained unconvinced. Those had been little things – someone falling, someone losing something dear to them. This time it was about a person’s life and not just anyone’s, but Mari’s.

He lay in bed as the day went on, as everyone in the house woke up and settled into their daily routines, and worried.

A knock on the door startled Yuuri out of his thoughts.

He looked at the time and panicked. It was midday already! How did the day slip away from him without him noticing?

“Yuuri,” Mari called out. “Yuuri, are you alright? You haven’t come out of your room since yesterday!”

“I’m fine! I’m really… Really, I’m fine!” he protested and he pulled his clothes on as quickly as he could.

“We’re getting worried. Mother thinks you caught a cold yesterday. Father is convinced you have a stomach bug. Do you need some medicine? I can run and get you something.” He could hear the concern in her voice and wondered what she thought was his reason for locking himself away.

Yuuri got tangled in his pants as he tried to stick his legs in them. He untangled himself with great difficulty before pulling them on at last and rushing to the door.

“Hello, Mari,” he said, opening the door with one hand and trying to flatten his hair down with the other one. “I’m fine. There’s no reason to worry. I just slept in.” He often slept in so the excuse was believable.

Still Mari didn’t look convinced.

Yuuri walked past her as if he didn’t notice the way she was looking at him and headed down for a really late breakfast. Maybe if he acted like nothing was wrong, it would all work out somehow.

But breakfast brought him no comfort. Worse: it only made him more anxious. His family made things even more difficult by constantly asking him about his well-being, his university applications, his plans for the day and anything else they could think of. There didn’t seem to be a single thing they weren’t interested in that day.

He left the house to get some fresh air and headed to the ice rink without really thinking about it.

The ice rink was empty that day. Every year the interest in figure skating in his small town seemed to wane. Fewer people signed their children up for skating lessons and pretty soon they would have to close this rink completely.

He went around in a circle, going backwards with his eyes down on the ice.

Yuuri felt like a man standing at a fork in the road. On the one side was the future the Speckleft had shown him, full of big promises and death, and on the other – the big unknown.

Why had the Speckleft shown him all that? Why couldn’t it have just explained how to prevent Mari’s death and left Yuuri to do it? But he’d learned long ago that the spirits had no understanding of human morality. If they could confuse, or trouble humans, they were willing to do anything.

He was wrong: he wasn’t a man standing at a fork in the road. He was a caged animal, pacing what little space he had between the bars and trying to find an escape.

The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t leave Hasetsu.

…and the vision of Mari’s death flashed before his eyes.

“Yuuri!”

He turned around at the sound of his name and saw Yuuko frowning at him. “Are you alright? You’ve been going around in a circle for two hours!”

“He isn’t,” a voice cut in before Yuuri could think of a suitable lie. There she was – Mari stood with her arms folded over her chest. “What is it, Yuuri? I can see something is bothering you.”

Yuuri turned away. “I’m fine.”

Usually Mari didn’t push. Usually she gave him room, knowing that he would come to the solution at his own pace, or that if he needed help he would come to her, but something was different this time. Maybe it was because she felt that in some way she was responsible, but she was determined to find out what it was.

Yuuri stood out on the middle of the ice, feeling the chill drift up his legs, all too conscious of the big empty space around him as his childhood friend and sister waited for his answer.

 

_“Look out!” a voice shouted and someone pushed Yuuri towards the sidewalk. And then the air was full of Mari’s screams._

_Yuuri turned in horror as a car sped towards his sister. The driver shouted something and hit the brakes, but he didn’t react fast enough._

_The bag that hung from her shoulder flew off and landed in the middle of the sidewalk, spilling all of its contents in its wake._

_And Mari lay on the road, one hand held out in the direction of the bag, as if trying to catch it, to hold back everything that had been inside._

“I’m going to Detroit,” Yuuri said and knew in that moment that he’d made the decision as soon as he realized he had to go. “A coach offered to take me as their student,” he lied, “but he lives in Detroit, so I have to move there.”

A silence followed his words, drawing more words out of him before he could hold any of them back, expanding on the lie, making it bigger, making it _worse_. “Celestino Cialdini called yesterday. He said that he sees potential in me. He said that one of the students could share their room with me, if I want.” The lie expanded like a balloon and he went on, waiting for it to pop.

“That’s amazing, Yuuri!” Yuuko exclaimed.

Yuuri forced himself to turn around and face them then. He swallowed the weight of it all down, trying to smile nonchalantly, telling himself that he also believed this lie.

Did Mari suspect? Did she believe him?

Her face was serious. “That’s our Yuuri,” she said in a tone he couldn’t interpret, “always worrying when something good happens.”

She could see straight through him. She knew he was lying. He was sure of it.

But a smile appeared on Mari’s face. “I’m glad,” she said in what was, for her, an enthusiastic tone of voice.

She believed him and somehow that was worse.

They talked about visas to the US, learning English and tickets from Tokyo to Detroit after that. Yuuri kept up as best as he could.

Yuuri didn’t lie often, but, in the few times that he did, something would happen and make his lie come true. Until that day he always thought it had just been a string of coincidences. It was always little things that would’ve happened anyway, he often told himself.

He was outside for a walk that evening when his phone rang. As he stared down at the name of the caller he wondered if it really was just a coincidence.

“Ciao, ciao! Celestino Cialdini here!” a cheery voice called out as soon as he answered the call. “Am I talking to Yuuri Katsuki?”

“Yes,” he said in a weak voice.

“I watched your last competition,” the man went on, “and thought you have a lot of potential. I heard that you don’t have a coach right now and thought, well, (if you’re not too opposed to the idea of moving to Detroit) that maybe you’d agree to be my pupil? One of my students just lost his roommate and would love to have someone to share with. What do you say?”

 

***

 

Yuuri closed his suitcase and was zipping it up when a knock on his door made him call out, “Come in!”

Mari entered, filling the room with smoke and making Yuuri tense up. “So you’re really going,” she said softly.

“I am,” Yuuri admitted, hoping that his voice didn’t give him away. His back was turned to Mari as the smoke curled around him. He avoided looking at it, terrified of what he would see.

“Are you going because you want to go, or because you have to?” she asked.

A little cloud of smoke caught his eye and he stared, despite his best efforts not to, and missed her question entirely.

A new vision appeared of Minako and Mari standing outside a restaurant and shouting at two men sitting at a table. Both men were strangers to Yuuri, but, seeing the attention they were getting, he assumed they were idols and dismissed them without a second glance.

Mari was much older in this vision as was Minako.

“Yuuri?” the Mari in the here and now asked.

A smile spread over his face and he turned around to face her. The Speckleft was at his shoulder, whispering something into his ear as smoke coiled around him, but he didn’t listen to it.

He preferred to take in the figure of his sister in front of him. She leaned against the doorframe in a pose that should’ve been relaxed, but he could see tension in every line of her body.

“Everything will be alright,” he said and really believed it.

She gave a little shake of the head and walked up to him, coming just short of being too close, staying just outside Yuuri’s personal space. “Take care of yourself,” she said. “Promise me you will.”

He nodded.

“And I know…” she hesitated before going on, “I know how much you hate to lose, but I will be proud of you no matter how well you do. We all will.”

She pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to him. It was a photo of the two of them sitting together with Vicchan in between them.

“And if you’re ever lost,” she went on, looking into his eyes, “if you need help, or advice, or just someone to talk to, remember: I’m always here for you at any time of day or night.”

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as one of the Bings for the Live and Love: A Yuri!!! On Ice Big Bang. (Bings are little warm up fics written in preparation for the main Bang). The art for this fic was made by the talented [littorella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littorella/)!


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